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The Conscious Table is a mindful dinner series that launched last summer.
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The foundation of The Conscious Table is to foster connection and meaningful moments over food.
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The Conscious Table was founded by EmmaLee Gough, Alyssa Edwards and Avraham Calhoun.
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Dinners at The Conscious Table are vegan.
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Dinner at The Conscious Table includes a meditation and guided discussion.
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The inaugural event from The Conscious Table took place in August 2024.
“I understand why people aren’t going out right now. We’re exhausted, we’re stressed out,” Avraham “Avi” Calhoun says.
Recent years have seen an abundance of articles on the “loneliness epidemic” affecting the nation, and Richmond is not immune. In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Virginia has the third-highest rate of loneliness in the country. In 2023, business site Chamber of Commerce ranked Richmond 10th on a list of loneliest cities in the United States. There’s no shortage of think pieces on the problem, but what about solutions? Calhoun, EmmaLee Gough and Alyssa Edwards, the creatives behind mindful dinner concept The Conscious Table, aim to create one.
The dinner series will host its next event, The Conscious Table Winter Dinner: The Path From Tension to Tranquility, a multicourse meal followed by mediation, on March 16 at Apothec on Libbie Avenue. The goal of the evening is for guests to come together through food and guided conversation and be part of an experience that inspires connection beyond the plate.
The idea for the series first presented itself after Calhoun and Gough hosted a similar event comprising dinner and a meditation session for a Jewish young adult group at Richmond’s Temple Beth El.
Living in Richmond for 16 years, Gough not only has a passion for mindfulness, but also for cooking. She recently studied abroad in Sweden at the plant-based culinary school VegChef. She is currently in the process of completing a nutrition certification from Cornell.
After returning to Richmond, the Conscious Table concept began to come to fruition. “I came back, and I felt like this idea is really popular in other places around the world, why not bring this to Richmond?”
Gough connected with Edwards, a friend and fellow foodie with a knack for business and logistics. The trio saw an opportunity to introduce a unique dining experience to Richmond and, most importantly, to build a sense of community.
Edwards says she thought to herself, “What is that nighttime experience that you can really dive into almost as like relaxation to end your week? Do we feel like we know where to click, where to go and how to search for the perfect experience to meet new people?”
Citing professional affinity group Creative Mornings as an example of a local outlet fostering new connections, Edwards says, “We couldn’t really think of a place [that offered what we were looking to create]. We knew that dinner concepts existed, but nothing like the obvious expertise of blending [meditation and dinner] all together and creating this situation where we will just nourish your mind and body. Just relax and let us handle it.”
The Conscious Table hosted its inaugural event in August of last year.
Edwards says, “This is really about the nourishment of the body and the soul. And we’re doing that through two main ways, which is the connection to food, exceptionally done, and consciousness and meditative sciences to really bring calm connection and ease into people’s lives.”
Gough adds, “We’re bringing connection out of a screen and back to a table, to a room, to an in-person experience.”
The ticketed dinners typically start with a happy hour (in collaboration with local and regional wineries and distilleries such as Charlottesville’s Vitae Spirits) that complements the “thought menu” of the evening.
Calhoun says that during their summer dinner they asked the group, “Where do you cross boundaries with others? How might this be helpful and how might it potentially be harmful, if ever?” Calhoun explains that they choose such questions “to break the ice, but also to get deeper than surface talk.”
Edwards agrees, adding, “The thought menu seeks to shake that sterile environment that folks are accustomed to and evolve outside of that and be more connected to themselves and to their ego and really just dig in.”
The four-course dinner at Conscious Table events is prepared by Gough, who taps into a seasonal plant-based spread (with dishes such as beetroot carpaccio or vegan brie with grape confit) incorporating ingredients from local farms such as Sowers’ Row, an organic and regenerative farm that specializes in microgreens.
Before dessert, Calhoun says, “We pull the guests out for the Conscious Experience, which is a mixture between traditional facilitation, community building, peace building, whatever it may be. For example, last fall was meta mapping.” A meta map, he explains, is “a facilitation tool used to take people’s individual ideas, put them on paper and see the commonality amongst the group.”
Following the Conscious Experience, guests are brought back to the table for dessert and a closing meditation.
At this point, Calhoun says, “People have been nourished, they’ve had community, they’ve had connection, they’ve had creativity. And now we’re going to root all of that into the heart and send them off, moving forward.”
In addition to their March 16 event and future seasonal dinners (announced via their email list and Instagram), The Conscious Table will attend wellness celebration RestFest in Moseley April 26-27 and will host a retreat at Eagles Nest, North Carolina, May 16-18.
Gough, Edwards and Calhoun want to eventually bring their experience to workspaces. “We can do these for any sort of team building, bonding, community building programs that people wanted to run,” Calhoun says.
“What separates us from the other supper clubs is the element of consciousness, the meditation and mindfulness experiences and workshops led by Avi [who holds a master’s degree in conflict resolution and meditation],” Gough says. “People arrive as strangers, but ... leave feeling like they’ve had a real experience with new friends. Combined with the food, it’s a whole mind and body experience.”
